I breathe in before the lift, then breathe out at the top of the lift. It’s only a couple of seconds between the bottom and the top of the lift, surely?

If you watch Eddie Hall lifting almost half a ton, he appears to breathe the same way.

As I’m sure you know, if you struggle to keep form in any lift, drop the weight down 10% and go from there.

If I haven’t eaten enough before a session, I can’t lift sh!t, and get the light-headedness and the wobbly legs. Possibly a factor for you?

What do you deadlift, brah? I’m 78kg and lifting 100kg on a good day. Can’t seem to lift over that with good form, but it’s psychological. I always plateau on the round numbers 😆

Happy to try and help. You might want to pour a drink …

I think you’ll be paying more than a third of your income in support and maintainence. We live in one the most “wife friendly” countries for divorce in the world. Court logic will be your wife has “given up her career / opportunity for progress” and as such is entitled to a place to live and raise your kids and you to pay handsomely towards that. The court would probably take a view that you can save for a deposit some other time when you have had a promotion etc … In the meantime you can rent a 1 bedroom. A 45 year old family member of mine is living with his parents post his divorce to save for a deposit

Anyway, I don’t mean to be overly negative but you should be prepared mentally for a tough outcome. You do need to get some proper advice, if the ex will agree to mediation that is cost effective and based upon typical court imposed settlements

I was debating whether to get a cheapie divorce “package” from a local solicitor firm, or pay quite a bit more for the local unpleasant rottweiler of a divorce solicitor and get some proper representation. I think I’m going with the second option.

And if it turns out in the end that I have to spend the rest of my life working for my ex-wife, having never achieved for myself the security and comfort I expected would follow the years of hard work at school, university and my chosen profession, then stuff it. I’ll ride my bike more, play with my kids, and occasionally have a little cry 😀

Jamba I appreciate the best wishes and you taking the time to type that out.

I would add for the record that I see any agreement as separate from the child maintenance, which I always pay and will continue to pay no matter what else happens.

My problem is that the child maintenance and the mortgage will take up a third of my monthly take-home. No chance of getting a deposit for my own place, and one bedroom is no good when I have two growing children coming to stay with me 3 nights a week. If my girlfriend ever gets fed up with me and kicks me out, I’ll be renting some rat hole. For ever.

Joyous thought 😀

Defined pensions are very valuable things.

Thanks. Yep – and mine is worth quite a lot more than your example. However it presumably doesn’t automatically follow that she can demand the cash value in lieu of her “slice” of my pension.

Otherwise, I’d be paying her mortgage for another 14 years, forgoing any chance I have of owning a property myself, while I go out to work and she sits at home.

I’d be dressing as Batman and climbing Big Ben if that happened 😯

Also, how old are your kids? Yes, it’s a good idea to make sure that the kids you have have a roof over their heads until they’re adults, but can you afford to keep them in that house if you end up finding someone else and having more kids?

And what if she finds someone else? As above, are you happy for him to move into your house at your expense?

1. I have someone else! I contribute my share of the bills but not the mortgage, as my girlfriend doesn’t want me to have any claim on her house if we split up. That arrangement suits me!

2. She doesn’t want kids and we’re bloody careful to ensure we don’t have any 😀

3. If my ex wife moved someone else in, it wouldn’t be at my expense. It would be up to her to charge him “keep” or not.

and 30x whatever annual pension you are due now from your contributions accrued during your marriage

Right. You have my attention. Please explain the 30x!

You also need to be aware of what would be your landlord responsibilities of for example she didn’t look after the property will or how you would feel if she moved a new partner in. Everything is possible but it always look better whilst you believe neither of you would do anything ‘unacceptable’ but experience has a habit of confirming that’s a native expectation. In simple terms, eyes open to anything and everything, hope for the best but plan for the worst.

Yeah. She actually doesn’t look after the property very well. I do, to ensure the kids’ home is nice. But yes, very valid points. Thanks.

Spend a few £ on a lawyer. Legal ownership and beneficial ownership are different you could both legally own the property on trust for the beneficial owner who is you . this would preserve your mortgage but entitle you to the full whack after mortgage when sold . I am not recommending this just saying it is possible. Honestly at this point a few £ on legal advice would be money well spent .

Yes – thanks.

I will take legal advice – I just wanted to run my thoughts by the STW massive 🙂

You’re not paying for her to live rent free, you’re paying for somewhere for your children to live.

I can and will do this in the short/medium term, but long term I don’t owe my soon-to-be-ex-wife a living and I can’t just buy her a house while I have none!

You could just take it into your own name (assuming you can, as above), pay the mortgage, and keep rent out of it.

Yep just had a good look at my credit record. I’m going to have a high credit score from Jan 2017 (negative data from 6 years ago dropping off). That gives me 6 months to pay the CC off. That will give me the best chance of meeting any affordability criteria for taking the mortgage on myself. No BTL mortgage needed for 5 years or so if she’s living there rent free. Can switch to BTL mortgage once I start charging her rent.

This is all assuming she agrees to the plan.

Thanks IHN (and everyone) for your thoughts.

Doesn’t matter what the circumstances are you’ll be taxed on the earnings – minus costs, I don’t think HMRC will care about your arrangement.

OK…so no rent coming my way = no tax?

All excellent points made so far – thank you.

And remember you will also need to pay tax on the earnings.

Yes. Tax question. If I forgive her rent for 5 years (payback for her share of the equity) am I naïve in thinking there’s no tax to pay (no income to tax!)?

Would you be looking to remove her from the mortgage? if so you’re income needs to be enough to take it on yourself. You don’t need much income to get a mortgage of 60k, if you have little debts?

This is the thing. The ideal is that I quietly continue to pay our very cheap joint mortgage, yet (somehow?) legally take ownership of the property.

If push came to shove I could probably get a £60K BTL mortgage on my own but unlikely to get one tracking 0.75% over base rate!

Just looked at that joke of a Martin Lewis thread – how many average people in this country with kids and a mortgage can even conceive of saving the amounts he talks about

Right. Yeah. I think that’s the point. It’s not a “joke”. Retirement is going to be tough for those who have not thought and saved well ahead.

When you say you’re staying “near” Benbecula, are you staying on it? Or on a nearby island, or in the sea? 😉

i’d literally lose money every month

Mate you’re not losing money! Every mortgage payment you make is buying you equity. And you have someone else to pay (almost all) of this for you.

Take your costs for keeping that house. Mortgage, insurance, maintenance. Now take away the income from the tenant. How much is it “costing” you?

Now you mentioned not having a pension. Work out how much you’d need to save every month in order to have the same income in retirement that the house will pay.

I think you’ll find that the house is a good deal.

Good luck with that.

I don’t need luck. I have a 7yr warranty.

The barriers to ownership of a BTL property are too high for most people. However, you have jumped that hurdle and therefore if I were you I would be reluctant to cash in the asset now.

The financial strain is only, presumably, because you don’t have a tenant at the moment? And yes, the rent might only cover the mortgage, but assuming it’s a repayment mortgage you’ll own it outright upon retirement, and it’ll be someone else who will have paid for it. It’s a no brainer!

You had a stressful experience with a tenant, and over the years you might have other stressful experiences with other tenants. You could probably do with seeing those problems as occupational hazards, “just business” and not get emotionally involved.

You could use a lettings service if you don’t want the hassle of dealing with tenants yourself.

Massive devil’s advocate and all that, but…

Me & my mate drove a minibus full of women over 1000mls over a 5 day period for a club we are members of.

Were you providing an agreed service, or were you just members who offered to do the driving? Could no-one else in the group drive?

The vegans within the group insisted on cooking their food seperately to the chicken nuggets and chips the kids wanted. Normally we would expect 30mins grace so that we could get the kids food sorted and then let the whoreds into t kitchen. NOPE, kids didnt eat until they had finished prep which was sometimes 10pm.

They probably didn’t realise. Did you ask them for the 30 mins to prep the kids’ meals first? I’m afraid I would have insisted. What about other members of the group who weren’t vegan? How did they eat? Would it have killed the kids to not have meat on the odd occasion and eat with everyone else?

i was happy to do the driving that night. It was raining and i happily dropped them off outside the Italian then walked 1/2 mile in rain by myself.

You don’t sound happy about it!

At the dinner my pal who shared the driving had 2 glasses of house wine out of the shared caraffs. At the end they cracked the calculators out, divided everything up and had the cheek to divide a 4 glasses caraff by 2 to take into account my mates glasses.

Probs petty to get the calculators out, but given that everyone was paying for what they had, why should your friend have got free wine?

we hardly got a thank you from the Vegans at the end of the trip.

So you did get a thank you – just not enough of one to satisfy?

keeping out of the pettiness that is Vegans.

I don’t think you can tar everyone with the same brush.

This coming from someone who agrees splitting the bill is fair enough as i quite often make a pig of myself and wouldnt want someone paying for it.

But you were in “utter horror” that your friend had to pay for his own wine?

I think there was some confusion over expectations. I think you went on a trip with some arsey and petty people. I think you expected drinks and gratitude in return for a favour that, perhaps, you might have given freely?

I had to google Mazda Bongo 🙂

No idea if they’re practical/reliable but they look like great fun.

Martin Lewis to the thread

To be fair that is the only thing apart from the odd bulb that has gone wrong. Owned since new.

You’ve been lucky and I hope you stay lucky. One of the headaches with an ageing diesel Ford is the design of the turbo and turbo actuator. They are sold/replaced together, so any problem with either means a £1000+ bill that you can’t put off.

For me, it felt like playing turbo roulette every time I got into my Mondeo 🙂

Hmm, this is giving me food for thought. Anything recommended in the huge boot econowagen genre?

I’m not fussed on diesel, but second hand petrol options are limited without going astronomical on fuel consumption.

I had the same quandary a few months ago. My ageing Mondeo was becoming a money pit and I took out a £9k loan for a used car. I was going to go for a used diesel Audi A3 but my heart wasn’t in it. After a lifetime of dealing with dodgy second-hand car salesmen and backstreet garages, I spent my £9k on a brand new Dacia Logan II.

I went for the turbo petrol one. It’s a Renault engine. Economical enough (50+mpg), 0-60 in 11secs will never break any speed records but the turbo gives enough of a torque boost that I can still overtake the slowcoaches on the moors without having to thrash it. It has the biggest boot in its class (only a Volvo V70 is bigger, apparently)and is well-enough-equipped (built in hands free & Bluetooth, electric windows) for me. It comes with a generous warranty and it’s a great bike/tent/kid carrier.

Brand snobs hate it, but every review (apart from Clarkson’s) really rates it.

I paid a bit extra for metallic paint but didn’t bother going for the alloy wheels trim level. I figured I’d drive on steel wheels and if, for some reason, I wanted alloys at a later date I could fit them. I don’t expect that to be the case though!

And I have the peace of mind of a brand new car with a long warranty and Renault servicing network.

Find a dealer and have a drive. You’ll be surprised 🙂

I’m sure people who are on holiday can still use PayPal.

This. Perhaps what the buyer means is “I get paid a week on Tuesday but didn’t want to miss out on the item”.

Waiting 8 days to pay for a purchase isn’t great but it doesn’t violate eBay’s T&C either. You could open an unpaid item case, but all that would happen is that the buyer would pay a week on Tuesday.

You can’t make them pay any quicker unfortunately.

Are you pitching to be Social Security Minister in Leadsom’s government ? The extreme right of the Conservative party would love someone with those sentiments to be in charge of reforming taxation and welfare payments.

Unless it is just your own money you are precious about ?

Please tell me this is irony.

Because if you can’t see the difference between paying for your friend’s beer, or ensuring that the poor aren’t forced into homelessness and malnutrition, then…

Engine warning light (cooling)
Engine warning light (turbo sensor)
Bonnet release catch

Had these with my Mondeo too.

eats tyres

And this!

And would add DMF to that, plus constant suspension problems, plus some other, expensive engine fault that kept putting the car into limp mode that I couldn’t be arsed getting fixed given the money I’d already sunk into the car so just traded it in.

I’m afraid I wouldn’t have another diesel Ford. In fact, I don’t think I’d have an old diesel anything.

A university friend of mine took me to one side and asked me if I’d lend him £20 so he could come out to the pub with us. “Of course! Here you go.”

He waited until everyone else had bought a round then said he was tired and went home with the fresh £20 still in his pocket 🙂

Actually he might also still owe me for some drugs I might have bought him in about 1998.

He’s a police firearms officer now. Seriously.

OP,

I think what all the replies are getting at is that releasing equity from an elderly relative’s home should be considered an absolute last resort; it’s expensive and wasteful to trade future security for present cash (and pay interest for the privilege), unless you have absolutely no choice.

To risk your mother’s home and keep it a secret from her, even if it’s possible, is immoral.

If one of your relatives owns six houses and you’re thinking of buying “a couple”, then I doubt that you as a family as so hard up that you can’t find another way to raise some cash, for whatever you want it for.

junkyard – you sound like a whole heap of fun to go out with, jesus! FUN POLICE

we went out sat night, close group of friends, all drink, all eat (one of the group had a sausage fest which was dearer than the rest), he also drunk pints rather than the ladies bottles/halfs

did any one moan?! No, we were out having fun, not tit for tat over a few drinks/quid, its a night out, if your struggling for cash don’t go out for a meal or explain beforehand, don’t sit there counting your pennies out of your moth ridden wallet

Wow…

Pont L’Eveque

Hang on #2:

What is the money for?

My mother-in-law is 70 this year and in very good mental and physical health.

I’m guessing not care fees then. If she’s in good health and mortgage-free, then why does she need twenty grand?

Bear in mind you wouldn’t be lending it to her; you’d be giving it to her. The equity in the house is your inheritance. You want to release a chunk of that and give it to her to spend.

is walking in to a bank(s) and doing this form of loan going to be the best way to release some equity from the house? None of us are really in a position to simply lend her the cash.

Please research the products available before “walking into a bank”. They range from the completely unscrupulous to the merely unwise. And once again – you wouldn’t be “lending” her anything; you’d be lending yourselves some money from your inheritance, and giving it to your mother in law to spend.

And if I’ve misunderstood, and the equity release isn’t for your mother in law but for yourselves, then whilst not illegal, would probably go against the spirit of what your M-I-L was trying to do when she gifted you the house. By mortgaging it, you’d be jeopardizing her security (and keeping her in the dark about it) in order to get your inheritance early.

without lots of Fed-Ex costs, delays and waiting?

Y’know, yeah, you should expect to have to send and receive some documents. And since you’d be taking out a loan secured against a house, the bank will have to conduct checks and searches on the property.

Sorry to be negative but this whole thing sounds like it’ll end up on Watchdog one day. The discussion I’d be having with my family would be

1. How much do we need this money and is this the only way we can raise it?
2. We should discuss it with Mum.
3. Let’s research the mortgage/equity release products available so we don’t end up ripped off and our mother homeless.

Hang on…

She isn’t aware of the plan but the money will make a big difference to her.

Who is “she” and “her”?

If you mean the mother, then you should tell her if you’re planning on digging the equity out from under her. It puts her home at risk. A small risk perhaps, but…

Them: “Then why did you park under the signs that say it costs £100?”

Well – yeah. Why did you?

Just pay what they’re asking, chalk it up to experience and enjoy a good night’s sleep.

Hebden Bridge is 38mins to Victoria

Alternatively – I pay to rent 6 parking spaces for my staff at my business premises. Frequently we cannot use some of them because local residents opt to use them instead of on street parking for which they have permits, or they’re used by shoppers. We write polite notices, but often to no avail, one woman got very abusive about it being a ‘free country’ etc. and when my colleague blocked her in called the police.

We considered getting a PPC to enforce it but at the time it was pointless because people who were prepared to abuse our space also would just rip up the tickets because the PPC’s “are nasty and cretinous individuals, the sort of individuals who used to go round clamping and who specialise in scaring the vulnerable” and have read a website telling them how unfair these fines as disincentives are and how to get out of it.

We’re now considering it again.

So, what gives? Why should I have to expense my staff’s town centre parking on days when they can’t get into our spaces because they’re taken up by nasty cretinous individuals who DGAS?

Nailed it

OK. 3/4 bibs, jersey and lightweight jacket it is!

You either haven’t listened to the tape, or you’ve listened to a different one to me!

If this thread is a defence of Andrea Leadsom, then the audio is here.

Her words were her own – not “put in her mouth” by a journalist.

Thanks, good advice and you’re right about obsessing on gossip and chat. Trying to cut the supply.

1- I’ve not deleted Facebook (need for work and a few climbing contacts) but have unfriended her, along with her network. Not perfect but does stop constantly seeing updates.

2- Yep, really enjoying my running and climbing at the moment. I’m running better than ever, the lack of stress has helped.

3- Yep, no mug and thankful for no mortgage, kids etc. Joint accounts already sorted. So not feeling too stressed about that.

Well done that man.

Now go and get LAID 😀

Time for an update

So, said wife has still made no contact. Spent the first few weeks pretty devastated and then… i discovered a bit more information about the way she’s been slandering me and behaving over a number of years. Needless to say, it’s sped up the ‘grieving’ process!

It’s funny how, if your very aware of your own faults and generally quite self critical, you can take more of the blame than due. Anyway, i’m saying very little and holding my counsel. People have a way of hanging themselves, so i’ll let her continue.

Now a case of moving on. My over riding emotion at the moment is relief. Life is a funny old thing.

Glad you’re feeling more positive.

One thing – try not to get into the minutae of the gossip and chit chat either now or historical. You can obsess over that sh1t and you’ll find things that will make you fume and churn over in your head late at night. Some of what’s been said/written might feel unjust to you, but none of it matters any more.

Standard internet bro advice for dealing with a marriage breakup:

1. Delete Facebook
2. Get lifting
3. Lawyer up

It’s a bit silly and macho when written like that, but it’s basically sound! So put another way:

1. Ignore gossip and don’t torture yourself by caring about what she’s doing or saying.
2. Concentrate on your own health and wellbeing.
3. Be ready to defend your interests in the divorce settlement.

I’d love to root my Xperia M4 to delete all the bloatware but it has an unlockable bootloader 🙁